Your Dumbest Theory

[RHW]

The Invisible Orlanth movement is a long con by the cult of Daak the Stranger to steal power and worship from both Orlanth and the Invisible God.

The con will ultimately fail because some intrepid heroquestor will prove Daak was Orlanth in disguise by murdering the last Good Emperor.

Or maybe that was the con all along?

[Nevermet]

New bad theories about Maniria:

 

The Ryzel hills are the body of Aroka.

Entru is the Horned Man

 

[scott-martin]

Genert was clearly the old sun. This particular configuration of lightbringers couldn't bring him back because the return of the repressed always requires a twist. So they made a deal with the other guy instead.

[scott-martin]

EWF actually stood for "Energy Without Force" and turns out it was a cognate of the goddess we now call Brastalos . . . the kind of thing you end up worshipping when you approach an absence from a theistic perspective, a kind of high storm with scales. This explained many things from the dearth of "dragon" influences across much of historical Glorantha to the working of the sacred storm mountains to the role of the Black Sun in the elemental system of the Kra Lor emperors to the persistence of the entity Lokamayadon followed to why Magasta is father of kaiju. 

[mfbrandi]

12 hours ago, scott-martin said:

EWF actually stood for "Energy Without Force"

Or for extra Wayism points, “effect(iveness) without force” — although too much action without action might frighten the blowhards.

[soltakss]

20 hours ago, scott-martin said:

EWF actually stood for "Energy Without Force"

Elves Without Forests

[scott-martin]

53 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Elves Without Forests

Love it.

Flip the "dragon" rune
Wings fall off, tap root unfurls 
Flamal has returned!
  -- Shirao

Seeds drift on the wind
The root achieved its mission.
"Dragon" time starts now.
 -- Basho

[Nick Brooke]

It was obvious, really: the sixth Lightbringer, a cowardly mortal dragged way out of his comfort zone on an heroic adventure he doesn't really want to participate in, isn't "Flesh Man" -- he's Flashman.

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

a cowardly mortal dragged way out of his comfort zone on an heroic adventure he doesn't really want to participate in, isn't "Flesh Man" -- he's Flashman.

Which raises the uncomfortable — but all too likely — possibility that we are all Flashman (minus even the hint of adventure).

[svensson]

11 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Which raises the uncomfortable — but all too likely — possibility that we are all Flashman (minus even the hint of adventure).

Or the witty banter...

And that's just sad.

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

It was obvious, really: the sixth Lightbringer, a cowardly mortal dragged way out of his comfort zone on an heroic adventure he doesn't really want to participate in, isn't "Flesh Man" -- he's Flashman.

Flashman Fought, We Won (1846-1847, 1860-1862)? 

For that matter, is Elspeth also present? 

[scott-martin]

25 minutes ago, Eff said:

Elspeth also present

Working as a team I think you all have just solved the enigma of the birth of zzabur or "malkionite lbq." Representatives of the secular castes (including women) come together and collectively produce the social conditions required to support institutional sorcery. 

There were other castes in those days of course but the flashman and the elspeth were amply represented in the rite.

[Eff]

10 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Working as a team I think you all have just solved the enigma of the birth of zzabur or "malkionite lbq." Representatives of the secular castes (including women) come together and collectively produce the social conditions required to support institutional sorcery. 

There were other castes in those days of course but the flashman and the elspeth were amply represented in the rite.

This perhaps implies that Talar, Horal, or both has a very prominent feminine representation, though this may be called the ranavolana and kodalisdaughter manifestations or emanations. 

[scott-martin]

16 minutes ago, Eff said:

This perhaps implies that Talar, Horal, or both has a very prominent feminine representation, though this may be called the ranavolana and kodalisdaughter manifestations or emanations. 

Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.

[dumuzid]

whoever happens to be wielding the Red Sword of Tolat is Glorantha's current instance of the Eternal Champion

[AlHazred]

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.

(puts on dogmatic lenses)

These professions are not mentioned by Plato, and furthermore, there were ten Atlantean kings, not twelve (Critias 113e ff.).

Edited December 1, 2022 by AlHazred

[AlHazred]

Regarding the reduction to the original RQ2 runes, on another thread, @Mark Mohrfield had this to say:

46 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I’m cringing again. I can understand the leaving out the others, as they are just minor modifications of other Runes, but Law and Communication seem pretty important. Does anyone know why they were dropped.

It's a Lunar Plot™! Just watch, Air/Storm will be next! "It's just a minor variation of Sky, you'll see, it'll be fine!"

[scott-martin]

16 minutes ago, AlHazred said:

It's a Lunar Plot™! Just watch, Air/Storm will be next! "It's just a minor variation of Sky, you'll see, it'll be fine!"

I endorse the dissolution of Trade as a shadow of somebody's looming hero war agenda. A kind of mid-game feint within the syndics. The sudden absence of Law in the wake of the disastrous final synod may be something similar but is probably just a really bad omen: thou hast turned thy face from the law of malkion, o my generations, therefore let the face of the law be withdrawn from thy sight.

Maybe the right quests will get it put back on the character sheet. And maybe the syndics have been hiding Trade all along in plain sight and will return it to circulation when the time is right. Or maybe we just don't need it any more, let it go.

P.S. I love the notion of multiple primary sources on the Brithos diaspora . . . who were all objectively "there" at the time . . . disagreeing on the details. How many ships? How many ur-castes? Male, female, aristocratic, proletarian, somewhere in between? Funny how nobody can remember quite the same story.

Yon wheeling of great stars
Hath cast a silver web around my heart
Upon an Elfin-Sea

Edited December 1, 2022 by scott-martin
obligatory frozen reference

[Eff]

2 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I endorse the dissolution of Trade as a shadow of somebody's looming hero war agenda. A kind of mid-game feint within the syndics. The sudden absence of Law in the wake of the disastrous final synod may be something similar but is probably just a really bad omen: thou hast turned thy face from the law of malkion, o my generations, therefore let the face of the law be withdrawn from thy sight.

Maybe the right quests will get it put back on the character sheet. And maybe the syndics have been hiding Trade all along in plain sight and will return it to circulation when the time is right.

P.S. I love the notion of multiple primary sources on the Brithos diaspora . . . who were all objectively "there" at the time . . . disagreeing on the details. How many ships? How many ur-castes? Male, female, aristocratic, proletarian, somewhere in between? Funny how nobody can remember quite the same story.

Yon wheeling of great stars
Hath cast a silver web around my heart
Upon an Elfin-Sea

Perhaps Law's percentile rating is simply half that of Fertility on the character sheet's, and Trade's is Harmony's but with one of the digits turned sideways. I don't know what happens if you roll with the number like that, but I suspect it involves lots of pretty lights and colors and heated arguments at the table. 

[scott-martin]

Just now, Eff said:

Perhaps Law's percentile rating is simply half that of Fertility on the character sheet's, and Trade's is Harmony's but with one of the digits turned sideways. I don't know what happens if you roll with the number like that, but I suspect it involves lots of pretty lights and colors and heated arguments at the table. 

It's like Dumbest Theory lurched right into the advanced hero wars workshop!

"Every rune is infinite but follows its own different shape in getting there." - Tight Indigo Pants

[mfbrandi]

21 hours ago, Eff said:

Perhaps Law's percentile rating is simply half that of Fertility on the character sheet's, and Trade's is Harmony's but with one of the digits turned sideways.

Hmmm … or perhaps Law is Sterility and 1 - Fertility = Law. But then we all know that if there was an ancient cup from which the whole world was poured at the dawn of creation, it was Chaos. Perhaps in the game of let’s throw out or downgrade some runes, we have been looking in the wrong place. Ditch Fertility in favour of Chaos and have an opposed pair of Chaos–Mysticism and Law–Sorcery. (Perhaps we can see a potentiality (is not) vs. realization (is) opposition here, too.) [[Edit: Looking back to Hero Wars, I see that Chaos was indeed paired with not as Law but as Cosmos.]]

But what do we oppose to Death, then? Glad you asked. If Death is separation — a big ‘if’, I grant you — then we oppose it to Issaries, which is coming together. As Law looked like a broken Fertility, so Death looks like a broken Issaries. But like I said: big ‘if’.

Maybe better to oppose Issaries (mutuality, equality) and Mastery (taking, dominance) — this might drive conflict better than Bluster vs Chaos. This is why few have the Issaries rune and thieves and merchants may be more interested in Mastery. And rather than seeing true Death as separation, maybe see it is finitude, having an end. Then we can oppose it to Infinity.

Of course, the game of re-jigging the runes to make a more humane Glorantha can feel a bit like that played by the dead in ‘Mr. Wilde’s Second Chance’:

Quote

‘That is beautiful, sir, beautiful,’ said a voice in the poet’s ear …
‘Do you think so?’ said Mr. Wilde curiously.
‘Lovely, sir! Such agreeable colour. Such delicacy.’
‘I see,’ said Mr. Wilde …

Oscar Wilde, poet, dead at forty-four, took his second chance from the table before him and broke the board over his knee.

Still, you know you want to take a handful of power runes and throw them into the maw of Krarsht or Kajabor.

Edited December 2, 2022 by mfbrandi
no new ideas, only bad ones

[mfbrandi]

A variation on the old joke:

    Q:  What is this ?
    A:  A dead one of these

Hence in Pamaltela, no-till agriculture.

[davecake]

9 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Ditch Fertility in favour of Chaos and have an opposed pair of Chaos–Mysticism and Law–Sorcery.

Not only do I think that there are quite a lot of anti-Chaos mystics in the East, it would be so terribly disappointing if there were no Chaos Sorcerers. It's just the clueless Pelorians that keep thinking mysticism must be Chaos. I suspect ultimately it is Yelm's fault. 

No, if the Runes are the fundamental building blocks of the universe, like the Sefirot in the Cabbala, then there should be the Qlippoth as well, the incomplete impure shells, the broken versions of the Runes, the cracks in the world through which Chaos gets in. They could be regarded as sub-runes of Chaos - not fundamentally changing the system of Runes, but elaborating it. 

We already know one of them - the Hunger Rune. Kind of Life and Death combined. Logically, there must be at least one more for each Power pair, but probably several more. It makes sense it would be known, because Chaos sorcery is clearly what Vampires do so they preserve the knowledge of their core rune, but other forms of Chaos sorcery were known in the Gbaji Wars (we know at least of the Chaos sorcerer Arinsor who was a foe of Talor), and while they would have been suppressed by almost everyone (both the Arkati and their proto-God Learner foes, and the Brithini and the Hrestoli, plus everyone who hates sorcery), they may yet have survived. Maybe the Vadeli know all about them? Though it's possible the Vadeli may be unable to use them, either because they are un-Illuminated or because they are still bound be their caste law. 

Anyway, what are the other anti-runes of the Chaos Sorcerers? Perhaps Entropy is one, and Corruption (corresponding to Kajabor and Wakboth?).

[Eff]

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Not only do I think that there are quite a lot of anti-Chaos mystics in the East, it would be so terribly disappointing if there were no Chaos Sorcerers. It's just the clueless Pelorians that keep thinking mysticism must be Chaos. I suspect ultimately it is Yelm's fault. 

No, if the Runes are the fundamental building blocks of the universe, like the Sefirot in the Cabbala, then there should be the Qlippoth as well, the incomplete impure shells, the broken versions of the Runes, the cracks in the world through which Chaos gets in. They could be regarded as sub-runes of Chaos - not fundamentally changing the system of Runes, but elaborating it. 

We already know one of them - the Hunger Rune. Kind of Life and Death combined. Logically, there must be at least one more for each Power pair, but probably several more. It makes sense it would be known, because Chaos sorcery is clearly what Vampires do so they preserve the knowledge of their core rune, but other forms of Chaos sorcery were known in the Gbaji Wars (we know at least of the Chaos sorcerer Arinsor who was a foe of Talor), and while they would have been suppressed by almost everyone (both the Arkati and their proto-God Learner foes, and the Brithini and the Hrestoli, plus everyone who hates sorcery), they may yet have survived. Maybe the Vadeli know all about them? Though it's possible the Vadeli may be unable to use them, either because they are un-Illuminated or because they are still bound be their caste law. 

Anyway, what are the other anti-runes of the Chaos Sorcerers? Perhaps Entropy is one, and Corruption (corresponding to Kajabor and Wakboth?).

Well, among the 56 possible combinations, here are three others that are oppositions merged, plus a retro combination. 

Delirium (Truth + Illusion)

Atonality (Harmony + Disorder)

🚂🚃🛤 (Movement + Stasis) 

Interessement (Luck + Fate) 

But all of these are only masks, as "Hunger" is of Undeath and Undeath in turn of Defiance. 

[mfbrandi]

6 hours ago, davecake said:

Not only do I think that there are quite a lot of anti-Chaos mystics in the East, it would be so terribly disappointing if there were no Chaos Sorcerers.

Well, if the Seven Mothers can combine and , and if Krarsht can combine and , I don’t see why you cannot have chaos sorcerers. Having one rune of an opposed pair is not to deny the reality of the opposing rune. Of course, mastering both is some trick, but and might help. Lunar College of Magic includes sorcerers, right?

I was just leaning into = Cosmos (being) and = Void (nothingness). I know that’s not to all tastes.

Edited December 4, 2022 by mfbrandi
power --> rune